


Things You Can Do With Ghosts Once You’ve Caught Them

by Kisatsel



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Humor, author does not know science, ghosts!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kisatsel/pseuds/Kisatsel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ongoing list, compiled by Jillian Holtzmann for scientific purposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things You Can Do With Ghosts Once You’ve Caught Them

1) **Trap them in devices.** It never hurts to start with the obvious. That’s what they, the Ghostbusters, do, right? Shut those fuckers up so they can’t scream at you or drench you in ectoplasmic discharge. In the interests of efficiency Jillian’s been working on a device which can store multiple ghosts; compression is easy in theory, but the unfortunate reality is that malevolent spirits don’t do well when forced into close proximity, and the prototype multi-ghost holders vibrate continually and emit a furious shriek so high it falls just within the usual range of human hearing. Fun for a while, but not ideal. Advantage: useful for dispelling overly curious dogs and teenagers. Primary disadvantage: trying to work three ghosts getting cosy in their metal cage nearby nearly made Erin cry from frustration, especially when Jillian told her she should listen more closely to find beauty in the music of the paranormal. So, back to the drawing-board. 

In the meantime, she’s reduced the size of the ghost storage devices to a metal cylinder that fits comfortably in the palm of the hand. If they catch enough ghosts they can stack ‘em up like cans of soup, or she could build a maze around the premises to alarm casual visitors. The thought is pleasing. 

2) **Fling them back into the void from whence they came.** As demonstrated by Jillian and her friends and witnessed by the world just last week, the portal can be closed by an energy blast proportional to the size of the tear in the fabric of this reality. The force of their makeshift car bomb was enough to merit a rank of 7, or “Major Accident” on the International Nuclear Event Scale, but from the trickles of residual energy they’ve noted around the city since the incident she’s concluded that her bomb could’ve been just a little bit stronger to really plug up the hole. Well. Lesson learned. 

The real challenge is figuring out how to send back ghosts on a case by case basis. Clearly they can’t just go around activating small scale nuclear explosions in hotels and old houses - the radiation risk alone is extraordinary - but, just like nuclear residue, ghosts have uncommon staying power and represent a unique danger (and fascination) to the general populace. A problem to look at from new angles: could the void, with some coaxing, be convinced to take back spirits without any explosions at all? An inverse gravitational pull, acting only on material of the other realm... theoretically, the idea goes far beyond general relativity. 

Erin might know. She loves research, unlike Jillian, who follows the idea just as far as she needs to go to find out exactly what she needs to bash with a hammer. Erin’s taken to blasting ghosts like a duck to water and the sight is stimulating to say the least, but she could be doing far more. A mind like that should be put to work. There are discoveries waiting to be made, once Dr Erin Gilbert is ready to trust her instincts.

3) **Make ghost batteries; power a small city, or maybe even a large one; profit?** Ghosts are energy. Energy so strong it strains halfway towards corporeality, fuelled by whatever furious impulse allows the spirit of someone long since gone to claw its way through to the world of living, breathing, carbon-based life forms. So what would you get if you compressed them down into a really small space, particle small? Ghost power. One class three entity alone could power some of Jillian’s more ambitious designs pretty much indefinitely. It would be a neat trick: replace one form of eternal imprisonment with another, and solve the world’s impending energy crisis in the process. 

Jillian got real excited about the idea for a few minutes, before she realised that powering your machines using the undead spirits of your ancestors was an act of colossal hubris that would almost certainly lead to a second near-apocalypse, and that would damage the Ghostbusters’ newfound reputation as heroes, and that would make her friends sad. A shame. Onward with the list. 

4) **Exorcise them.** Is there something to it, this... _religious_ stuff? There’s been a lot of interest in what the priests have to say, ever since a nutjob sent a giant stream of ghosts shooting out into the night sky to terrorise NYC for a night. Questions have arisen rapidly. Answers have been harder to find. 

Here is what she, and anyone with two brain-cells to rub together, knows: ghosts come through a door. If you knocked down the walls surrounding that door, where would it lead you? Would you be able to find any trace of the hand that built the house? Is that how this entrancing universe and its beautiful, elusive strands of logic twining through the chaos came to be, or did it assemble itself from nothing? 

Jillian hasn’t got round to bringing this one up with her friends yet. She doesn’t _really_ want to follow the ghosts through into the underworld to find out where God’s been hiding, at least, not urgently. She’s only a _tiny_ bit jealous that Erin was the one who had the idiotic, genius idea to leap straight into the vortex. Still, that hasn’t stopped her from making an appointment with a priest to come over to their new premises, sprinkle some holy water over a couple ghosts she’s grown particularly fond of. One of them drowned her lover in the bath after he forced her to give up their child, and plagued a succession of families with dripping taps and scalding showers. She might deserve some rest. Questionable, but one to be followed up.

5) **Talk to them.** Thus far unproductive. This is Patty’s area of interest, really. Two-way communication has not been a priority in developing ghost traps. Ghosts don’t have much to say most of the time; most of them just want to splurge ectoplasm at you, and those who are talkative have little to say beyond wailing and and petty grievances about friends and lovers they’ve murdered. 

“What about the non-malevolent spirits? Where they at?” Patty says over celebratory chow mein after another successful outing, and Jillian slows her chewing to consider this question. 

“Not haunting anyone, thank god,” Abby says. 

“I got some questions I’d like to ask.” Patty looks around the room, as if ghostly primary historical sources are lurking just out of sight, ready to walk through the walls at any minute. “I’m a historian. I want the gossip!”

“Ghost sex,” Jillian says appreciatively. Patty rolls her eyes. Erin looks scandalised. “Yeah,” Jillian adds, “those things made love, once upon a time. To each other.” She slurps up a noodle. “Bet you never thought about that.” 

“That’s cause they used to be people! What’s your - there’s nothing special about that. You just wanted to say ‘ghost sex’.” Erin’s brows are drawn together with indignation. 

“So did you just then.” Jillian winks and points a chopstick at Erin. Erin has gone pink on her cheeks and her neck, and she sneaks glances at Jillian until they finish their food. Jillian generously ignores her for two thirds of the time. She knows that sometimes you need to be able to look without fear of being caught. She’s okay with being seen, by these people. This woman. 

So, okay, leave ghost interviews to the historians. Scientists and engineers have other, more important things to think about. 

6) **Let them go.** Don’t do this, obviously. That would be stupid. They’re here to bust the ghosts for the crime of haunting people and causing general inconvenience and occasional chaos and death, so setting them loose to roam the city would be hugely counterproductive. 

In the database right now there are three class fours, seven class threes, two class twos and one tiny adorable little class one wisp of a thing that Jillian’s going to put in a transparent container and attach to a hat so she can introduce it to everyone as her friend and companion. It’s a hell of a lot of ghosts, and it’s a tiny fraction of the horde they saw pouring out in a torrent of black green smoke, an even smaller fraction of the souls that must be thronging on the other side. 

Erin comes over to the ghost shelf to look at the ghosts sometimes, chin resting in her hand, like she’s reassuring herself that they’re there. Jillian watches, and doesn’t say anything, not yet, because she has to make sure she says it right. 

In the end, Erin says it first. She wanders over to the workbench and watches while Jillian guts the innards of an old ghost detector prototype. Jillian flicks her eyes up and sees Erin’s small, nervous smile, and clenches her hand tight in the drum of the machine where it can’t be seen. She’s not ready, she should’ve planned her speech like she did the other time, this _matters_ , she should have-- 

“All those ghosts,” Erin says. “More ghosts than we know what to do with.” 

Jillian nods. Puts her hands flat on the bench. “Not a problem for now. A problem for later.” 

“Remember when I let out that ghost to prove stupid something to that man, and it grabbed him and threw him out of the window and he died instantly and we got escorted away by the FBI?” Erin leans forward like she’s sharing a secret. 

“I think I might recall it.” Jillian bites her lip, lets a grin crack across her face and leans in too. It’s easy from here, or should be, just three inches remaining and intent crackling between them and their kiss is basically a foregone conclusion except this kiss to be is already nothing like any of those kisses that were.

“I’m so glad that happened,” Erin says softly, as if confessing some terrible crime. “I’m - imagine if that ghost never murdered that man.” 

“Don’t look back.” Jillian stands, takes a deep breath to still the terrible terrified thudding of her heart, reaches out and puts her hand on top of Erin’s soft, cool one. Their eyes meet. Trapped spirits rattle around them, but Jillian’s free, soaring. Work to do. Time to build a home.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved! Kiwisatsuma on tumblr where I've barely even dipped a toe into this fandom but I'm excited to!


End file.
